The radio played whatever kid tunes when she trained in public, (most of the time it being the Rainbow Monkey theme song on repeat), but in private a very angry young rapper spat out rhymes that flowed with her steps while she danced underneath the singular light attacking her dance partner in the form of a punching bag. Faster, stronger, smarter, she imagined 274 against the punching bag and worked up a sweat getting him in the abdomen, the sides, and everywhere until she fell into that strange hypnotism where she felt nothing but the stinging of her knuckles and the sound of her heavy breathing.
Nothing mattered but the next hit.
"It's called 'the zone'," Chad had said from his perch on the mat earlier. He had stopped exercising a long time ago just to watch her as usual. His breathing was calm and his eyes were solely on her form, drinking in every punch, every bounce she made around the floor while she pretended to dodge hits from an invisible opponent. "You should see yourself as I see you now. Utter perfection. Dangerous. Invincible."
Was she really? Rachel wiped the sweat from her brow and gazed seriously at the punching bag; the memory of Chad's words last night rolling through her like a tangled web she always tried to pry apart and separate. This bag was heavier and more sturdy than the kiddy ones because it was designated for the rare heavy hitters like Numbuh 4 or Numbuh 719 and, of course, Numbuh 274.
She poked the bag with a finger, realizing that no matter how hard she worked at it, she hardly got it to move. It was frustrating seeing as she was working up some actual upper body strength the last month and a half. Her limbs were toned and sturdy, enough that it was starting to bother her teachers in prep. 'A lady does not gain muscle,' they had said before hitting her on the head with their rulers, 'only a slight supple frame.'
"You go to Kendall Prep, don't you?"
Aware that her 'zone' moment was shot from the interruption, she labored her breathing and allowed herself a moment of calm before addressing the young operative behind her.
The little girl was blushing hotly, a letter clutched in her fingers. She thrusted it in Rachel's direction, much to her curiousness. "Can you... can you give this to Numbuh 274 please?"
Ah, another love letter. Suppressing a weary sigh, she politely took it and played secretary once more. Rachel had long since accepted that the second-in-command role to a charismatic, good-looking leader will always have to be Cupid's messenger to his giggling fanbase.
On the plus side. she's learned the art of the straight face from it. If his grin got any more smug when she delivered him his daily bag of fanmail, it would probably be permanent.
"Wait... why did you ask about where I go to school?" Rachel blinked. If this was just a love letter, she could just deliver it to the office directly.
The girl already had a viable excuse for that. One that seemed suspiciously well-rehearsed. "It's not meant for the KND, sir. My sister goes to Kendall Prep and I guess she's got a crush on one of the upperclassmen there. That's when I found out the boy she was crushing on was the Supreme Leader. She made me take the stupid letter, sorry."
Chad went to Kendall Prep like her? Her eyebrow climbed when she turned the letter in her fingers. She didn't even know that he went to the same school as her. Surely she should have come across him at least once there?
The Supreme Leader's office was locked when she returned from her shower. The keypad was marked as Do Not Disturb, so Rachel instead busied herself looking through the last year's Kendall Prep's yearbook, finding a name and familiar face in the pages. The letter lay forgotten on the corner of her office desk.
There he was. Her mouth parted in surprise when she leaned forward to get a good look at his yearbook picture, completely in disbelief. There was Chad Dickson in Kendall Prep's uniform, tidy and perfect. Instead of the infamous sweep of blond hair over his eyes, it was slicked back which explained why she probably didn't recognize him in the first place. Those electric blue eyes still burned into her, even more so than usual.
No way. She started searching for more pictures of him in the activities section, finding him sharing a cold smile with the other mute socialites in the Honors Society page, the Young High Society's Society, the Youth Leadership Council, and a few solo pictures of him as a lead in drama club or playing in a violin recital.
Kendall Prep politics never really caught her fancy since she already led a double, sometimes triple life as a KND spy. But now she was regretting not considering that other KND students could have gone to the same school as her. Most of all being the monster himself. Despite damning evidence, she couldn't be fully at fault here. It wasn't like Chad approached her at school or anything or said, "Hey, since we have such a weird violent relationship, you want to go get a nice hot cup of cocoa in the Kendall cafeteria? You didn't know we went to the same school? Isn't that just dandy?!"
Rachel tried not to laugh at the mental imagery. Now she really wanted to see him at school, if not for her amusement. Maybe he didn't know she went to Kendall as well. Glancing at the unopened letter, she drummed her fingers on the spine of the yearbook before deciding on handing it to him at school as an excuse.
It was completely flawless.
Her shoulder bag kept bumping into Harvey and she ended up laughing when he started to violently bat at it while trying to pull at his tie at the same time. When they finally approached the gleaming gothic-styled gate entrance to Kendall Prep, Rachel knelt and smacked Harvey's twitching fingers away. "Okay, now it's getting annoying. Hold still."
To his credit, he didn't flip out when she undid their mother's horrible work and loosened the knot before it strangled him before lunch.
"I hate uniforms!" Harvey whined. "They don't get to wear them in Gallagher!"
Rachel's lips twisted down, sharing the sympathy. "Yeah, but Gallagher's a public school. They don't have to." The perks of being upper class had both its ups and downs. It would be nice to move from an impersonal private school to a place where a good number of KND operatives stuck together in. They just had to make due.
She brushed her hands together at her handiwork and then opened her arms. "Now, how about giving your super big sister a hug!"
Harvey instantly recoiled. "Ew! Noooo, I don't wanna!" That was when she used her secret weapon: she jutted out her bottom lip and gave him her best pout. He sniffed angrily and folded his arms, but eventually he caved. "Okay, okay! One stupid hug!"
"It's not stupid!" she laughed and squeezed the daylights out of her baby brother who whined and squeaked when some of his friend passed by to point and laugh at him. "Have a good day in class, Haaaaarvey! And don't pull Cynthia's pigtails anymore! I know you like her, but pulling her hair to get her attention is just going to make her more angry with you."
He shoved himself out of her arms. "How do you know that?!"
"I know everything," she pulled away and winked. "Because I'm your cool big sister."
Well, it was more like KND Intelligence but Harvey wasn't aware of her cred there and, playfully shoving him past the gate, didn't notice a figure leaning against the cool shadow of the gate who had watched them quietly the whole time.
The first person she asked was her class president, who she rubbed shoulders with from time to time in mandatory choir.
"Chad Dickson?" Amanda blinked. "Yeah, I've heard of him. He's one of the upperclassmen. Why do you ask?"
Rachel rolled her eyes at the peculiar look Amanda was giving her. "I'm not stalking the guy. I just have a delivery for him. So, I'd like a copy of his class schedule and his usual routes to and from said classes."
"Sounds like stalking to me," one of the girls giggled from her desk. "Must be a very important package."
Amanda had been unable to obtain the records, but she did hint that he spent time with the Honors Society during lunch.
She couldn't believe he was there, talking with his fellow honor roll students like he's done it for years, and yet she had never seen him until now. With the letter at hand, she made her way over, ignoring the stares the upperclassmen were giving her until Chad finally looked up after finishing a punchline to a joke. The laughter tapered off when she approached.
Those eyes flickered to her, but they didn't register her at all like usually. "Did you want something?" he asked with a cold politeness befitting his status. There were no trace of that insipid smirk or that tell-tale lean of his she attributed him with as her Supreme Leader.
The words died on her lips. It couldn't be the same person. "Chad?" she inquired with a neutral smile. It wasn't... it seemed as if he was acting in-character for something. The warning bells in her head devoted to her former spy work started firing on all cylinders.
"Do I know you?" he raised an eyebrow and this time his friends started to fall silent, all of them judging her with their staring.
Abby said that in Gallagher, being KND operatives were commonplace so there was no need for pretending they didn't know each other. Her hopeful smile failing, she started to wish she went to Gallagher instead than knowing that cold smile would be the only thing she knew Chad Dickson of outside of work.
Because Chad seemed more inclined to wish she didn't exist. "Here," she said and offered him the letter. "Someone wanted to give this to you."
He looked at the letter with mild disgust. "Sorry, I don't do love letters. And I don't date little girls." Some of his friends snickered.
"How do you know she's a little girl?" Rachel demanded, her frown now in full-force. He may be pulling some sort of con, but she was Rachel McKenzie at Kendall Prep. No smoke and mirrors. "You shouldn't just treat other people's feelings like trash."
Chad laughed. "Hit a nerve, did I? Bet the letter's from you and you're just trying to save face. I totally get it. Here's a tip in case you slept through your etiquette class: walk away gracefully before you make a bigger idiot of yourself."
"Gladly," she snarled and tossed the letter right into his pudding. "I hope you never reply back to the poor girl's letter, Dickson. She deserves someone with better class." A rush of people 'oohing' around them didn't faze her the slightest. She turned on her heel and started to walk away, then stopped.
"Oh, and go sit on a cactus," she parted over her shoulder. Whether he was playing a double agent or not, he never told her about it, never warned her; and as his second-in-command, she had never felt more insulted or hurt in her entire life. "I don't want to talk to you ever again!"
"Sounds good to me, cutie pie," Chad shot back with a grin, eliciting an explosion of laughter around him that only fueled the speed of Rachel's exit. What a tool. And really, was she really surprised the slightest?
She found herself pacing one of the empty classrooms, resisting the urge to punch anything other than Chad's smug face and ended up kicking a desk before sitting on top of the surface, trying to find her calm center.
He didn't deserve her anger or the tears threatening to prick around her eyes. No, she supposed that they couldn't have what like Sector V had in Gallagher. Sector V were all still friends in and out of the KND and, in return, it's possible they could still remain friends that way when they're decommissioned.
Once she got her emotions under control, she closed her eyes relaxed her shoulders, wondering why she was this upset. She and Chad weren't friends, just co-workers and battle partners. That's it.
Really, she should have expected this from the get-go.
"You're a real pain in the ass, you know that?" An extremely familiar voice said before the door squeaked shut and locked. "I thought they taught you something about not blowing an agent's cover in Intelligence."
"Go away," Rachel said calmly, refusing to open her eyes and have him ruin her attempt at meditation. "I said I don't want to talk to you anymore."
She could hear Chad visibly snort and approach her. "Shut up. You have a lot of nerve approaching me today. And all for a stupid letter." Something noisily hit the trash which she assumed was the letter in question. She took another deep breath in through her nose and exhaled a steady stream from her mouth. Huey would have been proud of the control she had at the moment.
All in all, she preferred the mean brawler with the fringe of hair over his eyes who led the KND with an iron, but effective fist. "You never even told me you were undercover," she growled. "All this time you were here and you never once said a thing! We go to the same school for Zero's sake!"
"Ah, are you sad that we aren't school chumps like the little sheep in Gallagher?" he sounded so conceited, she gripped the sides of the desk in anger to avoid jumping off and punching him. "My life doesn't always revolve around you, McKenzie."
"Noted. Now go away."
But when has Chad ever really respected her wishes? She wasn't surprised when felt his presence linger in front of her before his fingers brushed the back strands of her golden hair.
"You have no idea the position you're in," he whispered, causing her to jump when she practically felt his breath seep into her temple. "At the very least, you can be a good girl for me and deal with it."
What in Zero's name was he talking about? She opened her eyes to inquire and instantly regretted it because he immediately grabbed her hair and pulled down until she was forced to bare her neck for him. She got an even better look at this particular Chad Dickson, who acted more like a villain than a KND agent by the way he dragged his mouth from her ear and across her jaw until it barely had any distance to her lips.
She let out a light snarl of pain, but that only served to please him more. "I thought you were the kind of person above pulling a girl's hair for attention."
"If it works, it works," Chad murmured lowly in response. "Playground classics never go out of style."
Rachel was so used to seeing only one of his eyes at a time, she was immediately blown back by seeing both at once now that his bangs were gelled back. It was unsettling to have his full attention like that. She could only stare up, mildly hypnotized before he kissed her again, this time without a bet or prize attached.
Unless telling her off was considered a fight between them. At this point, her mind was doing that usual thing where she couldn't hold a thought because if she remained distracted for too long, Chad tend to do something weird with his kisses like bite or lick her.
Which he did. She winced when his teeth started to sink into her bottom lip, but couldn't pull away without him pulling her hair tighter again. The pain became so acute she was sure he was trying to draw blood so she opened her mouth on instinct to complain.
Now she realized why he was biting her in the first place. With a sound of triumph leaving his throat, immediately his tongue slipped in and she gasped, confused and alarmed because it should be extremely gross and it kind of was if someone else just spontaneously did it.
But Chad knew what he was doing. Like on the battlefield, this was just another form of art he was good at and turned her into jelly before she could understand why in the first place.
It was heady, imposing, safe. Like hiding under a blanket from the exposure of darkness where everything was intimate and alive. His grip loosened in her hair, because he was confident she wouldn't run now. Not when she was experiencing her first ever passionate kiss without even realizing it.
She very nearly let out a sigh of content when he pulled away for air and then pulled her back up for a second round, his nearly dark eyes promising an even better experience, when both of their KND communicators rang. Like finding light through a thick haze of fog, Rachel snapped out of it and pushed him off.
"What... what is wrong with you?!" she demanded, half in terror when he ignored his communicator and tried to round on her again. For Zero's sake she could taste him on her lips! "The communicators are ringing, sir!"
"Don't!" he snarled, the irises around his eyes still dilated like an animal. "You're not ending this because of the KND, Rachel! Don't you dare use it to cover up what happened here!"
What happened shouldn't have happened. Even she wasn't as oblivious to it. She pulled out her own communicator and turned away. "Numbuh 362, here." His eyes were boring into her back and she ignored it. At this point, she didn't know what to do with this.
She closed her communicator. "You're needed on Moonbase. Your mole has arrived." When she turned back around, Chad had already closed his own communicator and started messing with his hair.
"Must be Lenny," he said shortly, returning to his Supreme Leader persona already. It instantly calmed her now that the fringe was back. "Which means I need someone to alert Sector V for this mission."
"I've already sent Numbuh 35 after them," she replied and pocketed her communicator. No doubt it had something to do with coffee-related intel that was funneling through her own spy channels this morning. Of course her Supreme Leader didn't tell her anything about it. Shaking her head in disappointment, she tried to pass by when the bell rang, only to be grabbed by the wrist. "I'm not in the mood for another game, Numbuh 274."
He rolled his eyes. "You know why I stopped you."
Yeah, she did. "I won't blow your cover here, whatever it is," Rachel kept her eyes averted and waited for him to let go of her. "We don't know each other except that one instance at lunch and we haven't talked since because you're a raging tool. That work for you?"
"So much for cover bias by a former agent," he teased even when she wasn't in the mood to enjoy it, if she ever did. "if you wanted to hang out with me at school, you should have just said something."
That got her to turn and snap, cheeks red. "I didn't! I was just curious! And that stupid letter!"
"Mmhm."
"I just thought, I dunno, that we could be friends or something outside of the KND. Like the operatives in Gallagher, okay? It's stupid, I get that," Rachel grumbled and roughly pulled away from his grip. "Forget I said anything."
Suffice to say, when she returned to school the next morning, the entire population was a buzz with so much rumor traffic about her and Chad locking themselves in an empty classroom that it reached even Harvey's ears and that was unexcusable.
And with Chad just as popular in Kendall as he was in the KND, Rachel became public enemy number one with most of the girls of all grades.
She could only stand in subdued disbelief as students started to stop and stare, occasionally whisper to their friends and run off. When Chad told her he made 'arrangements' for them to meet up as equals in Kendall without blowing his cover, she expected something different.
They could have been friends, her mentor, a passing acquaintance. But he picked this and, really, should she have been surprised at all?
"Hey gorgeous," a tell-tale voice sang. Rachel stiffened when Chad placed an arm coolly around her shoulders, pulled her into his space like she damn well belonged there, and kissed her in front of her future former friends. "Give me your books, cutie pie, and I'll escort you to first period." So everyone could see and hate you even more.
Shaking with rage, she resisted the urge to shove him away because she couldn't. Chad was undercover and in turn, so was she now.
He pressed his lips against her ear before they walked together into the fancy building of Kendall Prep. "Be careful what you wish for."
Kendall Prep's famously noisy janitor happily whistled to himself cleaning out the garbage in each classroom. Delighted when he found an unopened letter tumbling into his giant trash bin, he instantly grabbed it and read the name across.
"Chad Dickson. Kekeke, must be a love letter!" Snickering, he eagerly tore open the envelope to read it for himself and was crestfallen when he found nothing but an empty page inside.